Having moaned about the lack of birds at the bird table throughout last month, they are back with a vengeance. I can only presume that as most of them would still have been nesting, they were passing up food on the table for something a little more alive! While most of the fat balls are being eaten by the Magpies, the food of choice seems to be the crushed seed. Pretty much everything we…
A Bit Like Buses
Having mentioned in my ‘May Country Life’ entry of a single Swallow sighting and bemoaning the lack of them here, guess what turns up a week later…..Yup, you’ve guessed it, a Barn Swallow. He’s sitting on the power line going to the house and I bagged this shot mid morning. Throughout the day we noticed he would fly around and feed for 20 minutes or so, then perch back up on the line and sing…
Observing Session: 8, June
Despite all the wonderful weather of the last week, most nights have not been good for astronomy. The cloud rolling in after the Sun goes down, being the usual culprit. Tonight was different. Perfect conditions. No wind, excellent transparency and very stable seeing.At this time of year, bagging those objects in Sagittarius is at the very top of of my list. The only problem is that it’s rising behind four trees. Apart from a…
Country Life: May
Outside Temp for April/May Well what a difference a bit of warmth makes. In early April the temperature struggled to get into double figures, and when it did warm up, the soil was still cold. It was only till about the first week in May that all hell started to break loose! If you wanted a lawn, you would now have to start cutting the grass every 7 to 10 days now, as it’s…
What Scorpion?: Observing Session. 25, May
Well we are back from our weeks holiday in Wales. Apart from the first night we were there, which was clear, but we were too pooped to stay up and observe, the clear night skies did not make an appearance. A pity as I was hoping to play with my new Sabre Alt/Az mount that I had just bought for things like holidays away from the Observatory. However, the Sun God did his thing…
International Astronomy Show Warwick.
Well what can I say but ‘I want one’ although I would need to build a bigger Observatory to get this little puppy in 🙂 It’s been a while since I went to a full blow astronomy exhibition. The last one was Astrofest in London around 2005. While I was just looking for the best Imaging set up within my budget, I wasn’t buying – the problem of getting it all back, would have…